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An Evening With The Royal BalletExcerpts from four different ballets danced by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev one of the most successful dance partnerships of modern times filmed at the peak of their creative genius with the corps de ballet of the Royal Ballet.Les SylphidesLe CorsaireLa Valsethe Sleeping Beauty (Act 3 Aurora's Wedding)Filmed at Royal Opera House Covent Garden London.

Carmen was first set as a ballet by the famed Russian choreographer Petipa in 1845. It was based on the Merimee novella and premiered in Madrid some thirty years before Bizet's opera was first heard. Subsequent versions followed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries some using and some discarding Bizet's music. In 1949 Roland Petit created a successful vehicle for himself and his wife Zizi Jeanmaire using the Bizet score.Maya Plisetskaya always dreamed of dancing the role of Carmen and had approached Shostakovich for a score. He demurred out of respect for Bizet's celebrated opera. It was eventually Plisetskaya's husband Rodion Shchedrin who agreed to provide the music after seeing his wife and the choreographer Alberto Alonso working on some choreographic ideas. His Carmen Suite ballet based on Bizet and scored only for strings and percussion instruments was a perfect complement to Alonso's choreography and in its theatricality a showcase for Plisetskaya's considerable dramatic gifts. Shchedrin's Carmen Suite one of the darkest settings of Merimee's tragic story deeply symbolic and overtly sensual premiered at the Bolshoi Ballet on April 20 1967.

Between 1917 and 1962 Picasso was involved in creating the designs for nine ballets. Le Train Bleu dates from 1924 and Le Tricorne from 1919. These two historic ballets created originally by Sergei Diaghilev have been revived by the Paris Opera Ballet.

An innovative attempt to reconfigure dance for the digital age, Evidentia is a fantasy on the idea of movement put together by a number of directors and choreographers under the guidance of French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, consisting of five separate films. "Solo" is a study in improvised gesture, virtuosically danced by William Forsythe. "Blue Yellow" dwells on Guillem's poetic dance measures in a yellow studio, looking inward from the confines of a blue room. "Smoke" explores relationships in highly abstract terms, though the emotion-laden narrative unfolded by Guillem and Niklas Ek makes for truly "visceral visuals". "Movement" is even more oblique--indeed, its montage of documentary-cum-movie footage (everything from Paris riots to Buster Keaton) and studio trickery make for a film around rather than about movement. "In the Wind, There is Someone" is, again, a video composition rather than a dance work, the Paris Opera's scenery store providing an intriguing and characterful backdrop. The films are connected by Guillem's often fanciful narration, with rehearsal sequences evoking a Chanel commercial. On the DVD: Evidentia comes in Linear-PCM Stereo with English commentary only, while the 4:3 picture format switches between black and white and colour with vivid immediacy. The booklet contains a background feature in five European languages. --Richard Whitehouse

The Irish hard-shoe sensation Riverdance underwent its second incarnation with Live from New York City, a 1996 performance filmed at Radio City Music Hall. The dazzling choreography and energetic score remain, but Michael Flatley was replaced by less-flamboyant Colin Dunne, a superb technician who works well with Flatley's former colead, Jean Butler. About half an hour longer than the 1995 original, Live from New York City expands upon the second act's theme of the Irish leaving their homeland for other parts of the world. In the most engaging new number, "Trading Taps", a trio of Irish dancers faces off against two urban American tappers. While much of this show will be familiar, it's different enough to be enjoyed on its own terms. It's also more stylishly shot, but that's also its biggest drawback--frenetic editing that allows only brief glimpses of the dancers and leaves the viewer dizzy. --David Horiuchi

La Sylphide which first appeared in the 1830's was the world's first Romantic ballet. The story of James a young Scottish farmer enchanted by a sylph or tree fairy on the eve of his wedding combines reality and fantasy. The great Danish choreographer August Bournoville created a version of La Sylphide for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1836 and it remains his most famous and enduring ballet. The Royal Danish Ballet rightly regards its interpretations of the Bournoville classics as being in the purest and most faithfully maintained tradition. This production recorded at the Royal Theatre Copenhagen in 1988 features Lis Jeppesen as La Sylphide. She is of the most famous interpreters of the role which requires lyrical interpretation as well as superb technique. Nikolaj Hubbe and Sorella Englund also star as James and Madge respectively.

Since its performance by The Royal Ballet in 1965 Sir Kenneth MacMillan's masterpiece Romeo and Juliet has been one of the greatest successes in the repertory winning world wide acclaim. His powerful and sensual choreography thrillingly captures the passion and agony of Shakespeare's tragedy alongside Prokofiev's glorious score. The classic performance filmed at Covent Garden in 1984 stars Wayne Eagling and Alessandra Ferri as the lovers both of whom dance their roles with tremendous intensity.

'Today I went to Ballet class and made some new friends. Our teacher's name is Terri Williams who writes all her own songs and dances which are great fun and helps us to remember our moves. My first Ballet lesson was great!'

Baryshnikov, Harvey and Don Quixote is a combination which could hardly fail to be a crowd-pleaser, but in an era when armchair ballet audiences have a huge selection of sure-fire winners to choose from it's worth reflecting on just why this production is so good. This is the 1983 Quixote from the New York Metropolitan Opera House, full-length and, indeed, full of merit. The staging is traditional and over-designed in the best possible way, with Brian Large's video direction capturing the whole apparatus with consummate skill (this is one of the few canned ballets which won't have you fretting over there being too many or not enough close-ups, tracking shots, wide-angle panoramas and so on--they're all there, and they're all uncannily where they should be) and with the cast seemingly having an enormous amount of fun, particularly Baryshnikov himself, whose twinkly eyed Basil is totally engaging. The most intriguing performance, however, falls to Richard Schafer as Quixote. Rather than allow the character to degenerate into buffoonery, Schafer depicts the elderly knight as mysterious and, indeed, almost mystical in his delusions; here, Quixote is not so much a clown but a seer, bearing a strange dignity which contrasts poignantly with the rumbustiousness around him--an elegant twist within an already very pleasing interpretation. --Roger Thomas

Dancing On Dangerous Ground is the thrilling new Irish dance drama based on Celtic's legend's most passionate and enduring love story - the tragic romance of Diarmuid & Grainne. The show features the world famous dancers and Riverdance stars Jean Butler and Colin Dunne. This long awaited Irish dance special received its world premiere in December 1999 at The Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London before transferring to Radio City Music Hall in New York in March 2000. Butler and Dunne

This Swan Lake was the unexpected popular hit of 1996, when radical choreographer Matthew Bourne took Tchaikovsky's traditional ballet by the scruff of the neck and reworked it with a myriad of modern influences and themes to astonishing effect. Seldom have the dark psychological riptides at the heart of so many classical ballets been so brilliantly exposed. The Prince (Scott Ambler) is a wretched and dissolute young man dominated by his mother, the Joan Collins-like Queen (Fiona Ambler). Shades of Tennessee Williams, indeed. Von Rothbart becomes a press secretary, more sinister &#233;minence grise than hissable villain. Most startling of all, The Swan (Adam Cooper) is a muscular, emphatically masculine male. Bourne has stressed the universality of his interpretation, which proved such a success for his Adventures in Motion Pictures dance company. And indeed this is never an overtly "gay" Swan Lake, although the electricity of the pas de deux at the height of Act 2 delivers a palpably homoerotic charge. Its universal threads--as Bourne suggests, the need to be held and understood is common to us all--are synthesised in the utterly moving conclusion as the Swan cradles the lifeless Prince and raises him to a better place. Swan Lake becomes a human, rather than simply romantic, tragedy. On the DVD: Swan Lake is presented in full screen 4:3 video format and this version would certainly have benefited from widescreen to show off the dazzling court and night club scenes as well as the lake and the impact of the all-male swan corps de ballet. But the lush Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound serves the rich interpretation of Tchaikovsky's score from The New London Orchestra to handkerchief-wringing effect. Extras include menu-driven resumes and a synopsis. --Piers Ford